Coroner, Dim$tar, Yourself [PL], marze and rBok6, I think this talk will interest you (but not only you ).

1. Engine state

The vanilla Wolf:Et binary is very old and experiences some issues on modern systems today, sometime it needs very ugly hacks and sometime it just does not work at all. Also, it's a very bad idea to host outdated and unmaintained servers on the Internet.

Today, mac users have intel cpu inside their personnal computer, no powerpc cpu anymore, some complains about that and they are right.

Some people updates the engine under the ET:Legacy name, they take care of backward compatibilities for previously released mods, but they can't do magic, sometime it does not work out of the box with some mods released only as binaries and needs ugly tricks.

2. Mod state

The current TrueCombat mods are a mess to install. Do you know that current GNU/Linux TrueCombat:Elite release is distributed as a bzip2 tarball inside a gzip tarball embeddeded in a gzipped shell script plus a zip patch archive containing files the user must overwrite by hand?

I personnaly wrote a tool to help me and my friends to achieve this epic quest but it's a GNU/Linux only tool, and it's not a long-term solution.

These mods work only on the vanilla Wolf:ET engine, which is not a good idea to use and sometime just not work at all. Badly, these mods do not work on ET:Legacy by default, I wrote a binary patcher to achieve this other epic quest, but it's a GNU/Linux only tool, and it's not a long term solution, and it's very ugly (forgive me father for I have sinned ). But today, it's the only way to me to host TCE/CQB servers.

3. Engine update

Since the Wolf:ET source code was released, some people have seen in this release an opportunity for TrueCombat.

So, after these ideas was shared, there was no team formed, but in fact it's not a problem at all: just let ET:Legacy doing the engine work for us, they already do it for them.

For you information, I tried to play to TrueCombat since many years, but I only managed to do it with ET:Legacy last year (but badly, many players are now gone). To me, there was no past without ET:Legacy, there is no present without ET:Legacy, so there is no future without ET:Legacy.

4. Mod update

Dim$tar has released some mod update with his cqb_dim mod he updates regularly, merging TCE and CQB stuff, it's very good ! But people does not play cqb_dim since it's not official and not very advertised.

But instead of “Looking for interest, then release”, why not “Release, then looking for interest”?

Here it's a special message to Coroner: since you are already ok to release the code if somebody is interested in it, it's not a problem to release the code if nobody is interested in it, no?

The less is better than nothing. If a standalone is not possible, why not allow mod update and recompilation to target modern systems and architectures? Hey, ET:Legacy already works on OpenGL ES and ARM platform, why not TrueCombat?

Also, for another project (Unvanquished) I write some tools to update assets (like a bsp split & merge tool or a map parser), I can update these tools to help TrueCombat maintainers if they needs things like that.

8. Why not a TrueCombat: Legacy mod?

The less you want to do, the more you can achieve what you want to do.

A standalone TrueCombat game is too much work, OK. So, why not release an updated TrueCombat mod for ET:Legacy?

Sometime some people ask me to unlock some windows binaries to be able to work on assets for example, something I really don't want to do for this specific reason:

This is exactly why I wrote this topic, to not see more people asking that. I don't know how Coroner receives this kind of attempt, I personnaly unlocked my own GNU/Linux TCE/CQB binaries to be able to play with real people for the first time in my life, so it's difficult to say to me it's bad, but the better solution is not to do weird things like that but to release the source and to allow to repackage the games to target modern systems and maintained engine, that's why I wrote this topic.

Like all of you, my time is precious, I prefer to spend my time helping people to release an updated unlocked cqb version than doing chirurgy on a dead body.

So, if today you need a patched binary to play on your own computer, to host a game on your own server, or to work on your own assets, please do not ask someone to patch your binary, say hello in this topic, ask for a release, and offer your help.

We are still waiting for ANY sign of life from Coroner side. As You can see, he is busy IRL and i understand this, therefore i was asking for a way to crack latest patch to make it open for custom content.

We are still waiting for ANY sign of life from Coroner side. As You can see, he is busy IRL and i understand this

Yes, I understand that too, that's why I suggest to only update the mod and not to make a standalone, because it is much much simpler. Plenty of projects fail because they are too demanding. This is a tautology, but it is easier to achieve easiest things.

A collaboration between all the teams that use ET would be really great. This is the reason I chosed to work simultaneously on two packages (CQB and ETL) even if I had to divide time and resources.From my point of view it would be enough that the coroner release an unlocked version of CQB (without source) so that anyone can contribute to the artistic assets on official release (maximum results with minimum effort).Unfortunately I think the little free time available is the main problem for everyone but especially for old blades as coroner (and me).

A collaboration between all the teams that use ET would be really great.From my point of view it would be enough that the coroner release an unlocked version of CQB (without source) so that anyone can contribute to the artistic assets on official release (maximum results with minimum effort).

I agree with you.

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Unfortunately I think the little free time available is the main problem for everyone

In my case this is not a big problem because [thank you god] currently i'm working in home @ pc

Depends on how you balance it. In my opinion sniper rifles should never be a 1 hit kill to the legs unless already damaged. You could of course try and balance the more powerful rifles by making them harder to use via more sway or something.

In my opinion sniper rifles should never be a 1 hit kill to the legs unless already damaged

Thats true, but if im trying to downgrade calliber class to 7.62×51mm bolt cycling after shot [not a full reload ] on this setting is too fast and even cant be modified by animation script because some parts of weapon behavior are hard coded.

I will take a look at the unlocked CQB in my easter holidays. Unfortunately my old system SSD chrashed in the meantime and I don't have the compile environment ready anymore, but I will figure it out. At first only PC.

ET:L seems to run fine with CQB but they still have the sound looping issue.

I am still not sure whether releasing TCE/CQB source will be good without a team. It might be, it might also just produce a wild number of versions and even more cheating.

I am still not sure whether releasing TCE/CQB source will be good without a team. It might be, it might also just produce a wild number of versions and even more cheating.

Ofcourse it might , two sides of the same coin.For example, every uptdates or fixes should be discussed as first, then tested by "team" , then approved by main coder and Chuck Norris ofc, then released for public test.

For example, every updates or fixes should be discussed as first, then tested by "team"

The best way to have update tested is to open the repository. For example sometime some Unvanquished developers asked me to test some code they wrote, and there was already one dev game on my server, but this was possible only because I tried myself first, even if they don't know me yet. There is no 10 000 guys on this planet who wants (and knows how) to compile CQB, and if we look at current open projects like ET:Legacy or Unvanquished, the openness is not a real issue, and have more benefits than inconvenience (sometime helpful people come from nowhere).

Yourself [PL] wrote:

Of course it might, two sides of the same coin.

Yes, without the open side of the ET:Legacy code, I would not be writing this message.

coroner wrote:

Hi Guyz,good to see some action going on here!

Hi, coroner, it's awesome to see you here, thank you for your answer!

coroner wrote:

I will take a look at the unlocked CQB in my easter holidays.

Awesome!

coroner wrote:

Unfortunately my old system SSD chrashed in the meantime and I don't have the compile environment ready anymore, but I will figure it out.

Hmm, I don't know why, but it does not surprise me. Hopefully, your source code was not on this SSD too. But for source code there is an easy solution to avoid data lost, to paraphrase a famous man: “only wimps use tape backup. REAL men just u̶p̶l̶o̶a̶d̶push their important stuff on f̶t̶p̶git and let the rest of the world m̶i̶r̶r̶o̶r̶fork it.”.

coroner wrote:

At first only PC.

By “PC” you mean Windows? if yes, giving the source for Linux people would be better than nothing (and just leave them to fend for themselves at first, this gives you more time).

coroner wrote:

ET:L seems to run fine with CQB but they still have the sound looping issue.

That is something to fix for sure. I think they will not refuse our feedback.

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I am still not sure whether releasing TCE/CQB source will be good without a team. It might be, it might also just produce a wild number of versions and even more cheating.

As said before, without ET:L source, people like me would never been there.

If you release an unlocked update I can write a some advertisement for you on the very popular french news website LinuxFr.org (see my articles) but for that the CQB update must be playable on GNU/Linux (Linux binary or source available, but at least one of them), binary is better for players, source is better for karma, both is best.

About the CQB project itself, I can compile source, host betatest servers, report issues and do french advertisement. But I work only on GNU/Linux (I have no Windows on my personal computer since 10 years). So, the more open the project is, the more help I can give you.

To be honest, I'm not a very talented player, what I like in games is less the gameplay itself than the technical project beside, I like to understand how it works and fiddling around with, and I like projects that are on a human scale, when you know who is who and can play with the one who do the game (or do the game with the one who play the game, as you want).

So soon we can take the goggles off and use them as mirrors too look around corners?

OFC! we can even throw them instead of flashbang.

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Is that even possible in TCE?

I dont think so, there is a kind of mirror effect obtained via shaders [as you can see on Dimstar's DEPOT version, in the bathroom on the floor, but it is a static place and for sure it cant be done as mobile object. Truevision feature might be added on "weapon screen" but problem is to set an ANGLE. Imo in game it would be a BIG LOL, at least in TC

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(do you still play TCE btw? Haven't seen much lately. Are you hiding under some random nick?)

No time to play longer at this moment If i have some jiffy to breath, im enjoying cqb and i make some content. But @ friday i will be there to spend more time. Cheers Cheese Wizzy.

Now I am digging into the code trying to catch up what the status of my internal 0.224 from August 2011 is. I don't even remember whether gametypes were unlocked and whether demolition and CTF is working in CQB if the map offers it. Maybe you guyz know better

For linux compile I have to get my virtual machine running again. For Mac I would have to get Tier at it.